Trump's Rhetoric Against Journalists Doesn't Threaten the First Amendment

There’s a specter haunting Donald Trump’s presidency: the specter of powerlessness.

All people who run for the U.S. presidency crave power, of course. Fundamentally, that’s why they run. What made Trump different was that he was so open about his motivations.

Barack Obama cloaked himself in selflessness—he ran on hope and change, you see—but fundamentally he was a brutal political operator who had harbored political ambitions for decades by the time he ran for the White House. Trump donned no such mantle. One particularly telling example came during the 2016 primary debates when he told Jeb Bush, ““The World Trade Center came down during your brother's reign.” Not administration, but reign. That demonstrated a literally regal vision of the presidency—one where a president has untrammeled powers. (Come to think of it, the only other presidential candidate of recent vintage who was so openly power-hungry was Hillary Clinton. Her slogan, “I’m With Her,” was literally all about lifting her up, not America.)

The constraints placed on the American presidency have become obvious since Trump took office. Congress has “resisted” his agenda in large parts. Meanwhile, he’s shown an odd reluctance to use the powers he does have. There’s no wall on the U.S-Mexican border. And despite his frequent bashing of the Washington Post and its owner Jeff Bezos, Trump’s Justice Department allowed Amazon to purchase Whole Foods, thereby allowing the world’s richest man to move in on the U.S. food supply.

But there is perhaps no greater example of Trump’s presidential powerlessness than his frequent rhetorical attacks on journalists. Trump has made no secret of his (in some cases justified) contempt for the mainstream media. Just this past weekend, he demanded that the Washington Post fire a reporter who posted an inaccurate tweet. Each time Trump, or his press secretary Sarah Sanders, lobs a rhetorical bomb at the mainstream media, legions of journalists fret that the attack is “terrifying.” That it’s an “attack on the First Amendment.”